But there's no discussion about it, Ashton's right the story was terrible. Doesn't stop what I said being accurate. At least XIII-2 had good gameplay and music, and more not terrible story. Caius was still the best not badguy villian in the series too. Story still sucked....seriously, I think X-2 and XIII-2 were made from the same basic thought process...odd.

Well as I recall X-2 happened because fans were A) annoyed that X didn't end with a happy ending and B) XI was a MMO so there was no single player FF on the horizon at the time.

The difference between X and Persona 3 is that The Answer elaborated on the ending of P3 by explaining in detail what happened and why instead of leaving it ambiguous. X explained everything within its own self-contained story and then backpedaled when they decided to release X-2 by saying "oh yeah, there's a small loophole we didn't mention in the last game even though it makes no logical sense."

Hm. That sounds troublesome, I might have to play both games again to come with my own conclusion.

But like I've said I have no idea right now if I'll be getting this or not.

Through the development of FFXIII there was always the intention to continue the story and making it a series.

Actually, as I recall they wanted to make a franchise out of it with Agito XIII, Versus XIII, and XIII proper. XIII-2 didn't come into the equation until well after XIII's release, and they knew they couldn't get Agito and Versus out in time.

Exactly. XIII was meant to be a self contained story with a shared universe that included Agito XIII and Versus XIII that would make references, but have no direct link, to XIII (and we know how THAT went...).

XIII-2, which was announced in January 2011 (though to their credit started development in April 2010) and released eleven months later, was never part of the original plan.

You know what Final Fantasy X, X-2, XIII, and XIII-2 all have in common?

I like all of them!

Seriously, though, while I agree that X-2's "secret ending" retroactively mitigated the impact of X's ending (and the same goes for XIII and XIII-2), I enjoyed playing all four games. I'm really excited to jump into X and X-2 again.

Exactly. XIII was meant to be a self contained story with a shared universe that included Agito XIII and Versus XIII that would make references, but have no direct link, to XIII (and we know how THAT went...).

XIII-2, which was announced in January 2011 and released eleven months later, was never part of the original plan.

Yeah but those references were just based on the mythos. Type-0 and Versus take places in their own universe as far as I know, not in the one of XIII. That whole thing might have changed over the years but they always have this intention of making Fabula Nova a big series of games that are not necessarily connected to each other.

XIII-2 happened because there was still material for that story to keep going. I still don't know if some of the retcons were intentional or not though...

In what way was X-2 less then infinitely more interesting gameplay wise than X? X had some strategy, but it was controlled, no sort of threat while you considered how to approach a fight. X-2 not only kept you thinking, but also gave you options to prevent (or in most cases delay) enemies attacks and commands. Compared to X, X-2s level of gameplay was like nes to n64.